The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton
1920

Introduction

Already a successful novelist in 1920 when she completed The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton anticipated best-selling status for her new novel. The Age of Innocence, set in late nineteenth-century New York society, did indeed become a best-seller and won the Pulitzer Prize the following year. Wharton was the first woman to receive this high literary honor. The novel is both nostalgic and satirical in its depiction of old New York, with its often-stifling conventions and manners and its insistence on propriety. Wharton had written about old New York before in The House of Mirth and The Custom of the Country, but in The Age of Innocence she is less caustic in her criticism of its culture. Having worked diligently in relief efforts during World War I, Wharton recalled her formative years in New York society as a time of stability, even though that stability was the product of strict adherence to accepted rules of conduct.

Because of similarities between Wharton's style and that of her friend Henry James, The Age of Innocence is frequently compared to James' writing, especially his novel A Portrait of a Lady. Serious students are often encouraged to read the two titles in order to compare James's point of view to Wharton's distinctly feminine sensibility.

The Age of Innocence is regarded as a skilled portrait of the struggle between the individual and the community. It is also a work that explores the dangers and liberties of change as a society moves from a familiar, traditional culture to one that is less formal and affords its members greater free-dom. The novel's staying power is generally attributed to its presentation of such universal concerns as women's changing roles, the importance of family in a civilized society, and the universal conflict between passion and duty.

Author Biography

Edith Newbold Jones was born to a wealthy family in New York City on January 24, 1862, and soon learned the manners and traditions of society life that would characterize her fiction. Because her family lived in Europe for much of her childhood, she was educated abroad and privately. She enjoyed travel and reading from a young age, and while her parents supported these interests, they disapproved of her ambitions to become an author. Her lifelong love of books, foreign places, and nature would figure into her successful career as a writer. Biographers depict her as a lively, congenial woman who made friends easily. This may account for her friendships with such notable men as author Henry James and Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1885, she married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton, a banker who was thirteen years her senior. They lived in New York City; Newport, Rhode Island; and Lenox, Massachusetts; and traveled to Europe often. As she became more serious about her writing, Wharton designed and built a home in Lenox, called "The Mount," as a writer's retreat. From 1900 to 1911, she often went there to escape social pressures and immerse herself in undistracted writing. Her marriage was unhappy, however, and because Teddy had numerous affairs, embezzled her money, and struggled with mental illness, Wharton divorced him in 1913. Wharton was independent and never remarried, although rumors persist about two important men in her life who may have been her lovers.

Published in 1905, The House of Mirth was Wharton's first critically acclaimed novel. By this time, she had become a good friend of Henry James, and she followed in his footsteps and became an expatriate in Paris, enjoying extended stays beginning in 1907. When she sold The Mount in 1911, she made Paris her permanent residence. Her talent responded well to the new environment, and she published volumes of short stories and novels, which earned her a faithful following, critical acceptance, and a Pulitzer Prize in 1921 for The Age of Innocence. In addition to being the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, Wharton was the first woman to be awarded the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. She also received an honorary degree from prestigious Yale University in 1923, one of the few occasions that brought her back to the United States.

Wharton died of cardiac arrest in France on August 11, 1937.

Plot Summary

Book 1: Chapters 1-9

The book opens as members of old New York society gather at the opera. Although they have not come to the opera together, Newland Archer rests his gaze on his fiancée, May Welland. He considers her innocence and how he will educate and enlighten her, so that she can become his ideal woman. A stir is created when May's cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, arrives in the Wellands' box. She married a Polish Count and lived in Europe until she left her husband, reportedly with his secretary. By inviting her to their opera box, the Wellands knowingly risk becoming the subject of gossip.

Newland thinks about the Welland family matriarch, Catherine Mingott, who is a powerful figure in New York society. Catherine is an enormous woman, whose weight prevents her from leaving her house. Still, she is a respected and animated member of her community.

During intermission, Newland visits May in her family's box, as a show of support in light of the scandalous appearance of Ellen. He suggests that they announce their engagement right away to restore dignity to the Welland family. After a brief conversation with Ellen, Newland is intrigued by her lack of regard for the rules and conventions of New York.

Regina and Julius Beaufort host a ball after the opera, where Newland and May announce their engagement. The newly engaged couple visits Catherine to seek her blessing, and as they are leaving her house, Ellen arrives with Julius Beaufort. Newland concludes that Ellen's European experience has rendered her unaware of the social impropriety of her behavior.

May's parents plan a dinner to be held as a formal introduction of Ellen. When almost everyone refuses to attend, the van der Luydens, an elderly, aristocratic couple, respond by inviting Ellen to their home for a formal reception. Because they are role models of propriety, New York society follows their lead. At the reception, Newland again talks to Ellen and is drawn to her. He visits her the next day and she admits her loneliness. Newland is sympathetic toward her and aware of being anxious in her presence.

Book 1: Chapters 10-17

As a lawyer, Newland is asked to help convince Ellen not to divorce her husband. Despite his opinion that she should be free to do as she wishes, he agrees and explains to her that although the law may support her divorce, New York society will not. While she may be happier divorced, her happiness will come at a cost to her family. Resigned, she agrees not to pursue the matter.

May and her family go to St. Augustine for the winter, and Newland sees Ellen at the opera. Soon after, he discovers that she has gone away with the van der Luydens to Skuytercliff, so he follows her. Once there, he finds Ellen and they speak in private until, to their surprise, Julius arrives. Newland realizes then that Julius is pursuing Ellen romantically, and he returns to New York. When Ellen sends a note asking to see him, he instead leaves for St. Augustine.

Newland asks May to move up their wedding date. May suggests that he is only asking because he loves another woman and is impatient to do the honorable thing. She adds that if he does truly love someone else, she will step aside for his sake. New-land denies loving anyone but her.

Returning to New York, Newland visits Catherine to persuade her to allow the wedding to be hastened. She agrees.

Newland visits Ellen the next evening. He tells her that she is the woman he should be marrying, if it were possible. They kiss, but when Newland offers to leave May, Ellen will not hear of it. She has learned from him that it is wrong to gain happiness at the expense of others.

Book 2: Chapters 19-26

May and Newland marry and go to an estate near Skuytercliff for their wedding night. While in London on their honeymoon, Newland meets a French tutor, Monsieur Rivière, who inquires about opportunities in New York. Newland sadly realizes that there is nothing for an intellectual like Rivière in New York.

After returning home, Newland hears that Ellen has gone to Boston, so he lies about a business trip in order to see her. She is surprised to see him and explains that she has just met with her husband's emissary. Although he offered a great deal of money for her to return, she rejected it. Newland and Ellen go to lunch, where he bemoans the fact that he married May because Ellen told him to do so. She agrees to stay close as long as they never do anything that would hurt May.

Back in New York, Newland runs into Rivière, who reveals that he was the emissary sent by the Count to speak to Ellen. After a very tense discussion, the men realize that neither of them thinks it is in her best interest to return to Poland. Newland secretly wonders if Rivière is the secretary with whom Ellen was reported to have run away.

At Thanksgiving, everyone discusses rumors of Julius' financial problems. Next, they gossip about Ellen, who has gone to Washington. When Sillerton Jackson suggests that Ellen is being "kept" by Julius, and therefore will be in dire straits should he lose his money, Newland becomes enraged. At home, Newland tells May that he has business in Washington. She assents to his leaving, adding that he should be sure to see Ellen while he is there, thus letting him know that she is aware of his real reason for making the trip.

Book 2: Chapters 27-34

Julius faces financial ruin and public scorn. His wife visits Catherine, the head of her family, to ask for help, but she is rejected. Catherine then suffers a mild stroke, after which she sends for Ellen. New-land cancels his Washington trip and offers to pick Ellen up from the station. In the carriage, he speaks openly of how he longs to find a way for them to be together. When she responds with talk of reality rather than dreams, he gets out of the carriage to walk home.

Catherine's condition improves, and she sends for Newland. She explains that Ellen has agreed to stay and take care of her, and she wants Newland to defend Ellen to the family. Thinking that Ellen has agreed to stay in order to be closer to him, he agrees.

Newland and Ellen meet at a museum. They talk of their helplessness in their situation, and Ellen insists that they not fall into the common trap of having an affair. That night, May is in good spirits and tells him that she visited Catherine and, while there, had a nice talk with Ellen.

A few nights later, Newland prepares to tell May about his feelings for Ellen. May interrupts and tells him that whatever he has to say makes no difference, since Ellen has decided to leave for Paris. Newland decides that he will follow her.

May hosts an elaborate going-away dinner for Ellen. Although Newland does not have the opportunity to talk to Ellen privately before she is driven home, he resolves to go through with his plan. After the guests have gone, he tells May that he has decided to travel. She responds by telling him that she will be unable to go with him because she is pregnant. She admits that two weeks before, when she reported having such a good talk with Ellen, May had told Ellen she was pregnant, even though she was not yet sure of it.

The novel's last chapter takes place twenty-six years later. May has given Newland three children (two boys and a girl) and has died of pneumonia two years previously. Newland has lived an honorable life, all the while harboring memories of Ellen. Called to Paris on business, Newland's older son, Dallas, insists that his father accompany him. There, Dallas arranges for a meeting with Ellen. In a frank conversation, Dallas admits that he knows something of his father's past with Ellen, as May had revealed to him that Newland had given up the thing he wanted most in favor of his family.

When Newland and Dallas approach Ellen's building, Newland tells Dallas to go in without him. Dallas asks what he should tell Ellen, and Newland responds, "Say I'm old-fashioned: that's enough." As Newland sits outside the building, he imagines the meeting going on inside and ultimately determines not to go in. He walks back to his hotel.

Characters

Janey Archer

Janey is Newland's unmarried sister. She lives with her mother and Newland. She and her mother grow ferns, do needlework, and seek out the latest gossip.

Mrs. Archer

Mrs. Archer is Newland's widowed mother. She and her daughter share a room upstairs so Newland can enjoy having more space to himself downstairs. Mrs. Archer follows social rules and manners to the letter, and tries to protect her grown daughter from certain topics because she is unmarried.

Newland Archer

The main character of the novel, Newland Archer is a young man who has grown up in New York society. He lives with his widowed mother and his unmarried sister, and is engaged to May Welland. Seeing her as an innocent, he imagines that he will educate her and show her the ways of the world. Because he reads a variety of books, he fancies himself erudite and well-educated, not realizing how much his own thoughts and experiences are limited by his immediate environment. In Chapter One, Wharton writes:

In matters intellectual and artistic Newland Archer felt himself distinctly the superior of these chosen specimens of old New York gentility; he had probably read more, thought more, and even seen a good deal more of the world, than any other man of the number.

Newland has a position as a lawyer, but is not at all serious about his career. This is common in the society depicted, among young men whose families are wealthy.

When he meets Countess Ellen Olenska, New-land is drawn to her mysterious and unconventional ways. She helps him see the artifice of old New York, as he helps her understand the complex demands of decorum. He falls in love with her, but their love is doomed by propriety and responsibility. His struggle is essentially between his individual desires and the good of his community and family.

Newland chooses to stay with his wife, who is pregnant with their first child, but holds onto his memories and fantasies of what might have been. He creates a pleasant life for himself and his family, and even dabbles in politics at the insistence of Theodore Roosevelt. Twenty-six years later, he is a widower and finds himself in Paris, where Ellen is living. Faced with the opportunity to meet her and possibly renew their romance, he decides not to see her.

Julius Beaufort

Julius was not born into New York society, but is accepted because he has married into a respectable family. The details of his past are shady, a fact which is overlooked once he is a member of high society. His importance in the social arena is strengthened by the fact that he and his wife have the only private ballroom in their community. The annual ball becomes a major social event, and this is where May and Newland announce their engagement. For a short time, Julius pursues Ellen to be his mistress, but she is not interested.

When Julius' unscrupulous business dealings become public knowledge, he and his wife are quickly shunned by society. At the end of the book, Newland's son Dallas is engaged to marry the daughter of Julius and his second wife. The narrator notes that although Julius' ruin was a major event in its time, years later it is barely remembered.

Regina Beaufort

Regina is a relative of Catherine, head of the Mingott-Welland family. She marries Julius for the unconventional reason that he has recently become a millionaire. Because Regina's husband is considered an outsider, her peers take a little time to accept him.

Regina is beautiful but indecisive, and ignorant of her husband's financial decisions. When Julius' business dealings cause their ruin, Regina visits her mother to ask for help, but she is refused. Catherine tells her that a wife's place is with her husband, in honor or dishonor.

Sillerton Jackson

Jackson is a bachelor who lives with his sister, Sophy. He has an incredible memory for old gossip and New York families. He is uniquely able to understand how all the pieces of history fit into the sprawling family trees of the upper class. Because he is caught up in gossip, he fails to recognize the goodness and decency in his fellow New Yorkers.

Lawrence Lefferts

Lefferts is New York's expert on good taste. He often lectures on the virtues of marital fidelity, even though everyone knows about his numerous affairs. Like Jackson, he prefers to focus on negative gossip than on the positive aspects of their social culture.

Media Adaptations

• The Age of Innocence was adapted as a silent film by Olga Printzlau, produced in 1924 by Warner Brothers. In 1934, Margaret Ayer Barnes, Victor Heerman, and Sarah Y. Mason adapted the novel as a film in a production by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. Most recently, in 1993, Martin Scorsese directed a Columbia Pictures adaptation of the novel by Scorsese and Jay Cocks. The film starred Daniel Day-Lewis as Newland Archer, Michelle Pfeiffer as Countess Olenska, and Winona Ryder as May Welland.
• A well-received stage adaptation was performed on Broadway in 1929.
• Numerous audio adaptations have been made for listeners to enjoy the story on tape. These include releases by Books on Tape, 1982; Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, 1992; Bantam Books-Audio, and Random House, both 1993; Big Ben Audio, Blackstone Audio, Dove Entertainment (read by Joanne Woodward), and Penguin Audiobooks, all 1996; Bookcassette and Brilliance Corp., both 1997; and Audio Partners Publishing Corp., 1999.

Medora Manson

Medora is Ellen's eccentric aunt, who took care of her orphaned niece throughout Ellen's childhood. Medora has been repeatedly widowed and her resources are almost spent, which has no effect on her lively and engaging spirit.

Catherine Mingott

Formerly Catherine Spicer of Staten Island, Catherine is the Mingott-Welland family matriarch. Widowed at the age of twenty-eight, she lives in a slightly unconventional house, which she never leaves because her obesity will not allow it. Despite her tendency to thumb her nose at established rules, she holds a great deal of social power in her family. The most important thing to her is the integrity of her family, and she is vocal in her criticisms and blessings. Unlike the rest of the family, Catherine likes Ellen very much, and is sympathetic to her.

Countess Ellen Olenska

Ellen is May's mysterious cousin, who arrives in New York and creates a stir merely by attending the opera. After marrying a Polish count and living in Europe for a number of years, she has determined that her husband is too much of a scoundrel to bear. She has left him, apparently with the help of his secretary, and has returned to New York to seek a divorce. In light of the rules of propriety, her situation is scandalous and risks the good name of her family. In contrast to May, Ellen represents sophistication, worldliness, and tragedy.

Having lived outside the New York milieu, Ellen has acquired "Bohemian" tastes, and she has become an independent woman. Her disregard of New York rules of conduct intrigues Newland, who is sent to talk her out of pursuing the divorce. They begin to spend time together, and realize they are passionately in love with each other. Ellen is unwilling to bring pain to her cousin May, however, so she refuses to run away with Newland. When May tells her she is pregnant, Ellen decides to go to Europe and cease being a distraction to Newland.

Monsieur Rivière

Newland meets Monsieur Rivière, a French tutor, while he and May are traveling in London on their honeymoon. Later, Rivière shows up in New York, telling Newland that he was sent by Ellen's husband to try to convince her to return to Poland. It is an odd twist of fate, but Newland is most interested to know if Rivière is the secretary with whom Ellen was reported to have run away. The answer is never made clear.

Mrs. Thorley Rushworth

A few years prior to the events of the novel, Newland had an affair with Mrs. Rushworth, a married woman. While the affair in no way marred his reputation, public knowledge of it tarnished her good name. The narrator describes her as "silly" and imagines that she was taken more with the secrecy of the affair than with Newland's charms.

Louisa van der Luyden

Louisa and her husband are the last of the true aristocrats living in New York. Their roots are European and their influence is great, despite their lack of socializing. When Ellen has been disgraced, Mrs. Archer pleads her case to the van der Luydens, who come to her rescue and encourage the other members of society to accept her.

May Welland

May is the sum of her New York society upbringing. She is beautiful, proper, and innocent. Although she enjoys "masculine" activities, such as sports, she is determined to be a perfect wife to Newland. May seems childlike and carefree, but the reader soon realizes that she is more knowledgeable about the complexities of relationships than Newland is. She knows that he will conform to the dictates of their community, and she uses this to manipulate him. Afraid of losing him to Ellen, her cousin, she tells Ellen that she is pregnant, knowing that Ellen is a decent and honorable person who would never allow herself to be the reason Newland left his wife and baby. She reveals her pregnancy to Newland just as she senses he is preparing to leave her.

May and Newland eventually have three children together. May dies of pneumonia after caring for their son, who recovers from the illness. After her death, Newland discovers that she knew of his love for Ellen and had told their older son that New-land had given up the thing he most wanted for the good of the family. As was proper, however, she never brought up the subject with her husband.

Ned Winsett

A friend of Newland's, Ned is a poor journalist who provides Newland with intelligent conversation and new ideas. Ned encourages Newland to go into politics, but Newland finds the idea laughable until he is much older.

Themes

Propriety and Decorum

The Age of Innocence is a detailed portrayal of social conventions and respectability in late nineteenth-century high society. Newland has grown up in this environment and has internalized all the manners that dictate behavior in old New York. Even intimate matters are subject to rules of etiquette, as when May lets Newland guess that she cares for him, which is the only declaration of love allowed a young unmarried woman. Gossiping is completely acceptable, yet members of society strive to uphold, above all things, their own reputations. Sillerton Jackson and Lawrence Lefferts are held up as experts on New York's family trees, proper form, and good taste.

Every event in old New York is subject to ritual. When May and Newland are engaged, they must make a series of social calls. On his wedding day, Newland wonders what flaws Lawrence Lefferts will find in the event. As Ellen prepares to leave for Paris, May hosts a formal dinner in her honor. As May and Newland's first occasion for entertaining on such a scale, the dinner is a milestone for them. At the same time, it serves an important social function, as Wharton writes in chapter 33: "There were certain things that had to be done, and if done at all, done handsomely and thoroughly; and one of these, in the old New York code, was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe."

The novel's conclusion shows Newland refusing to see Ellen, even though they are both free to be together at last. Some critics argue that New-land's sense of decorum is so deeply ingrained that he cannot bring himself to realize the fantasy he carried around for so many years. James W. Tuttleton, writing in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume Twelve: American Realists and Naturalists, states that Newland forgoes the chance to have a romantic relationship with Ellen "out of respect for the memory of his marriage." Even as a widower, and even as the strict rules of conduct are passing out of style, Newland cannot bring himself to make decisions outside the parameters of propriety that have governed his life. It seems that things are as they were in chapter 1, where the narrator remarks that "what was or was not 'the thing' played a part as important in Newland Archer's New York as the inscrutable totem terrors that had ruled the destinies of his forefathers thousands of years ago."

The Role of Women

The contrast between Ellen and May is sharp. May is the pure and beautiful product of old New York and all of its elements. After she and New-land are married, he often observes how she is quickly becoming a younger version of her mother. May represents traditional womanhood in the New York social system. On the other hand, Ellen has been absent from New York for quite some time, and her time in Europe has changed her. She relies on Newland to help her navigate the treacherous social waters in which she finds herself upon her scandal-ridden return. She is mysterious and exotic, yet accessible. Unlike the other women in the community, Ellen has had experiences that are hers alone, not shared by an entire social set. She views herself differently than the other New York women view themselves, and as a result, she is seen as a completely different kind of woman.

In his introduction to the novel, Paul Montazzoli observes that a reader may approach the novel not as a romance, but as a "feminist thesis novel." He remarks:

That May is mentally too lumpish a companion for Newland (at least according to his perhaps too-flattering self-image) he acknowledges as the fault of the old New York patriarchy that formed her. Ironically, Newland himself is a pillar of this patriarchy, with a few cracks here and there through which the charms of Ellen gain entrance. That rumors of an affair in Ellen's past damage her socially, while equivalent rumors about Newland damage him not at all, strikingly illustrates the double standard.

In the novel's setting, women, though their roles are slowly expanding, are still subject to such double standards. In chapter 7, Newland expresses his view that women should be as free as men are. Wharton adds:

"Nice" women, however wronged, would never claim the kind of freedom he meant, and generous-minded men like himself were therefore—in the heat of the argument—the more chivalrously ready to concede it to them.

The Individual and Society

Newland desperately wants to follow his heart and be with Ellen, but his society would never accept such a decision. He is divided, but ultimately cannot abandon the conventions and expectations of the only society he has ever known. When he decides to run away to Europe with Ellen, May announces her pregnancy, and he knows that this turn of events seals his fate. He would never be such a cad as to abandon his wife and baby, so he learns to accept the life that is laid out before him. For the good of his family and social acceptance, he sacrifices his passion for Ellen. In his introduction to Edith Wharton: Modern Critical Views, noted literary scholar Harold Bloom observes that "Newland's world centers upon an idea of order, a convention that stifles passion and yet liberates from chaos."

Similarly, Ellen returns to New York at the beginning of the novel, expecting to file for divorce. She discovers, however, that New York will shun her unless she stays married to the count. Newland is sent to advise her, and he explains that her happiness must be secondary to the consequences that will be felt by her family if she disgraces them by divorcing. She unhappily agrees to stay married, even if she does not return to her husband.

Artifice

The reader soon learns that in old New York, reality is less relevant than appearance. In chapter 6, Wharton writes, "In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs." Careful phrasing, wearing appropriate clothing, and maintaining the illusion of a happy marriage are all examples of the habits adopted by members of New York society. As long as Julius keeps up the appearance of being financially responsible (even when everyone knows there are questionable details of his past), he is accepted, but as soon as his shady dealings become public, he and his wife are outcasts. Lawrence Lefferts, meanwhile, waves the banner of marital faithfulness in public, despite the fact that everyone is aware of his numerous love affairs. In her book The Female Intruder in the Novels of Edith Wharton, Carol Wershoven comments, "It is therefore not marital fidelity that is a value in New York, but rather the appearance of it."

Newland realizes after May's death that, in carrying out her role as wife, she maintained her own facade. He never knew that she understood the sacrifice he made in not following Ellen, and he is touched that she was sympathetic. Early in their marriage, May's interactions with Newland reveal a degree of artifice. She is fully aware of her husband's love for another woman, but rather than admit this openly, she pretends to be unaware, while at the same time saying seemingly innocent things to him that are understood by both parties as challenging. When Newland tells her he is going to Washington for business, for example, May knows he is going to see Ellen. When she tells him to be sure to see Ellen while he is there, they both know she is communicating that she knows why he is going and expects him to behave honorably.

Topics for Further Study

• Compare Wharton's depiction of New York society life with what you know about tribal societies, past or present. Do you think that New-land Archer's use of anthropological terms to describe his community is justified? If so, what can you conclude about human nature? If not, why do you suppose Newland thinks of his environment in this way?
• Compare and contrast Countess Ellen Olenska in The Age of Innocence and Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
• Consider the novel's title, and make a case for why you believe Wharton chose it. Do you find that there are multiple meanings, or does the title refer to one specific character or event in the novel?
• Do you think Newland would have followed Ellen to Europe if May had not announced her pregnancy? Research three different psychological theories (i.e., behaviorism, gestalt, rogerian, etc.), and make a prediction based on each one.
• At the end of the novel, Newland muses on how things have changed between his generation and Dallas' generation. Research American history at the turn of the century to get a better idea of what major changes took place at this time.
• Draft a new ending for the novel in which New-land decides to meet with Ellen in Paris. As you imagine this turn of events, do you gain appreciation for the skill of novelists?

Style

Setting

The setting is so dominant an element in The Age of Innocence that it almost becomes a character. Through detail and lush description, Wharton brings to life the social world of the wealthy in 1870s New York. The environment is so critical to the work that Wharton opens the novel with the grand scene in which everyone is dressed in their finery for the opera. This immediately alerts the reader to the novel's dramatic setting. Because the modern reader is unfamiliar with the "trappings" of old New York, details of the carriages, visiting practices, and attire provide a much-needed context for the story. James W. Tuttleton in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume Twelve: American Realists and Naturalists comments, however, that modern readers are less interested in the details of daily life in old New York than they are in "the spiritual portrait of the age," which is another component of the setting.

The society depicted is closed to outsiders and revels in its elite membership. Carol Wershoven in The Female Intruder in the Novels of Edith Wharton notes that the elimination of "undesirables" from the social circle is the product of a fear of reality. In this closed community, matters of reputation, manners, and decorum are valued highly, and the dignity of one's family name is of extreme importance. Every event, from a wedding to a night at the opera, is subject to the rigors of propriety. When May and Newland announce their engagement, they are expected to make a series of social calls because the "New York ritual was precise and inflexible in such matters." Subtleties of dress, gesture, and word choice can have enormous consequences, and gossiping is considered acceptable. This is the environment in which Newland has been reared and educated, and while he is comfortable in it, he regards it as stifling and narrow-minded.

Imagery and Symbolism

Throughout the novel, Wharton employs certain images to provide subtle cues to the reader. May's mud-stained and torn wedding dress clearly represents the problems in her marriage to New-land. Anthropological terms such as "clan," "tribe," and "totem" draw parallels between the strictly regimented social system of New York and less formal cultures of the past.

Newland's selection of flowers for May and Ellen provides insight into how he views the two women. To May, he sends pure white lilies-of-the-valley. They represent innocence and simplicity, which are traits he sees in May. On the other hand, he sends intense, fiery-yellow roses to Ellen, which reveals that he sees her as vibrant, sexual, and passionate. When Ellen and Newland are together, the narrator almost always mentions fire. Whether Newland lays his head on the mantle, a log in the fireplace snaps and flares, or memories burn in Newland's heart, the image of fire emphasizes their smoldering passion.

Humor

Known for her sharp wit and subtle use of irony, Wharton is equally capable of using outright exaggeration for the sake of humor. In her description of Catherine Mingott, one of society's most respected members, the narrator observes in chapter 4:

The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman with a neatly-turned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon…. [In the mirror she saw] an almost unwrinkled expanse of firm pink and white flesh, in the center of which the traces of a small face survived as if awaiting excavation.

Explaining Mrs. Archer's delight at her son's upcoming marriage, Wharton writes in chapter 5 that Newland is entitled to marry someone like May, "but young men are so foolish and incalculable—and some women so ensnaring and un-scrupulous—that it was nothing short of a miracle to see one's only son safe past the Siren Isle and in the haven of a blameless domesticity."

Irony

Wharton uses irony in The Age of Innocence to reveal the hypocrisies she sees in New York society. When May and her parents go to St. Augustine for the winter, Mrs. Welland arranges for a group of servants to help them make the best of it. As they all sit down to a sumptuous breakfast, Mr. Welland tells Newland, "You see, my dear fellow, we camp—we literally camp. I tell my wife and May that I want to teach them how to rough it." Later, in chapter 26, Mrs. Jackson condemns the vanity of wearing extravagant new dresses, when the proper thing is to buy dresses and wait a few years to wear them. She then describes another woman's dress that she remembers from the previous year, and how a panel has been changed to make it look new. She apparently cannot see that such minute attention to and memory of what ladies wear is exactly what feeds the vanity she berates.

Wharton also uses irony to make her main character, Newland Archer, especially tragic. Early in the novel he is sent to talk Ellen Olenska out of pursuing a divorce. Although he believes she should be allowed to make her own decisions, he agrees and explains to her that by getting a divorce, she would be buying her happiness and freedom with her family's pain. Later in the story, he falls in love with Ellen, but she is unwilling to be with him because doing so would deeply hurt Newland's wife. Newland has taught Ellen not to pursue happiness at the expense of others, and that lesson returns to haunt him. It is also ironic that Newland is pressured by May's family to approach Ellen about her divorce and support her. It is because of May's family that he gets to know Ellen, and it is because of her and her family that he cannot have a romantic relationship with Ellen.

Irony is used for comedy as well as tragedy. In the midst of a dramatic scene between May and Newland in chapter 10, Newland is trying to convince her to move up their wedding date, and she flippantly remarks that maybe they should elope. When he responds favorably to this idea, she responds, "We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?" Of course, they are people in a novel, and this is Wharton's use of tongue-in-cheek comic relief in an otherwise tense scene.

Compare & Contrast

• 1870s: The United States is recovering from the Civil War and is not yet a world power. As a result, Americans focus on internal issues and resources, and tend to identify themselves in regional terms.
  
  Today: The United States has a major world presence, both economically and militarily. Americans are interested in both domestic and foreign issues and events. While people often retain a sense of pride in their regional culture, citizens of the United States generally think of themselves as Americans.
• 1870s: The society described in The Age of Innocence strives to preserve itself against unpleasantness. Members of this society will not even consider allowing intellectuals, artists, or writers into their circle, as they are likely to bring with them new ideas and points of view.
  
  Today: "Unpleasantness" is not only pervasive, but is often sought out by average Americans. Movies and songs containing violent and profane content are routinely consumed by the American public. Individuals and families—not society—are responsible for censoring what they are willing to see or hear. Many parents make the effort to install blocking devices on their home computers in order to protect their children from the controversial material that is so readily available on the Internet.
• 1870s: After dinner, wealthy men often retire to their private libraries to enjoy cigars together. In such comfortable surroundings, they are free to speak of sensitive issues and business matters that are not appropriate in mixed company.
  
  Today: Cigars have regained popularity, and bars, restaurants, and other social venues have become cigar-friendly. Just as in the past, people enjoy cigars and conversation together. The difference is that since the late 1980s, the number of women who smoke cigars has grown significantly.
• 1870s: Women are expected to wear their wed ding dresses at special events for up to two years after their weddings.
  
  Today: Some women spend thousands of dollars to buy an elaborate wedding dress that they will wear only once. After the wedding, women often have their dresses preserved to prevent damage, in hopes that one day the dress will be worn by another member of the family

Historical Context

Wealth in the North

After the Civil War (1861–1865), the South was in ruins, economically and structurally, but the North flourished. While wealth in the South declined by sixty percent, wealth in the North increased by fifty percent. As a result, there was a growing class of wealthy New Yorkers in the 1870s. This trend is represented by the character of Julius Beaufort, who has become a millionaire. Although the tight social circle of New York does not favor outsiders, he is allowed in by virtue of his marriage to Regina Mingott, a member of a very respectable family.

As people in the North gathered wealth, New York became especially showy. The upper class enjoyed attending the theater and the opera and hosting extravagant parties. A woman named Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish held a dinner party in New York City to honor her dog, who arrived at the party wearing a $15,000 diamond collar. In The Age of Innocence, this lifestyle is depicted in the lavish parties and luxuries the wealthy enjoy.

As the century came to a close, there was a growing lower class as most of the wealth was concentrated in the upper class. Forced to labor in sweatshops, factories, and mills, the underprivileged resented the lifestyle of the wealthy. Strikes and riots broke out and political corruption became rampant.

High Society

The Age of Innocence takes place during the last breath of New York high society, although its members did not sense the dramatic changes coming to their world. They gathered at the opera house, and they relied on an accepted canon of rules and conventions to direct their behavior. They flaunted their wealth and talked behind each other's backs, but remained respectful of convention. There were strict expectations regarding appropriate attire, events, home decor, and marriage.

Women

Although powerful in social terms, society women were dependent on men to provide for them. If a woman came from a wealthy family, she might be fortunate enough to have a sum of money to contribute to the marriage, but women expected their husbands to take care of all of their material needs. Women were expected to behave in certain ways, especially in the upper class. They were to master domestic skills, such as needlework, and they were never to challenge men or be unpleasant. A virtuous woman was one who was pretty, elegant, and compliant. In The Age of Innocence, May represents the New York society ideal, while Ellen hints at the strides being made for female independence outside the tightly knit New York community.

In 1869, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association. Even before the Civil War, women had begun to assemble and demand to be heard. At the time Wharton's novel is set (1872), the women's movement had begun, although it had not reached the closed system of New York society. In fact, in 1872, Anthony went to the polls in Rochester, New York, demanding to be allowed to vote. Clearly, change within the traditional New York system was imminent.

Critical Overview

At the time of The Age of Innocence's publication, Wharton was already a well-respected author. Her readers and critics expected much of her, and they were generally impressed with her new novel. They found the characters realistic and interesting, and Wharton's ability to capture the details, mood, and rigors of New York society life was praised by readers and literary critics alike. In a 1920 New York Times Book Review, William Lyon Phelps applauds the novel, noting, "I do not remember when I have read a work of fiction that gives the reader so vivid an idea of the furnishing and illuminating of rooms in fashionable houses as one will find in The Age of Innocence." He adds, "New York society and customs in the seventies are described with an accuracy that is almost uncanny."

Besides providing a vibrant piece of social history, Wharton's novel told a compelling story complete with universal themes and comments on the complexities of human interaction. Margaret B. McDowell in Twayne's United States Authors Series writes that the novel is "at once a masterful evocation of a milieu and a masterful delineation of human beings caught between renunciation and passion." In The Two Lives of Edith Wharton: The Woman and Her Work, Grace Kellogg-Griffith remarks, "Mrs. Wharton portrayed the society of her young womanhood with a clarity and a firmness of outline that have given them life and permanent importance. The Age of Innocence is a flawless piece of artistry." Equally enthusiastic was Phelps, who concludes that "Edith Wharton is a writer who brings glory on the name America, and this is her best book." The critic went on to comment that this novel lacks the flaws typically found in Wharton's novels, such as relentless witticisms, unbelievable coincidences, and seemingly rushed scenes. Critics noted that Wharton depicts New York with a sympathetic yet scolding tone that is wholly appropriate. One of Wharton's contemporaries, Carl Van Doren, author of Contemporary American Novelists 1900–1920, observes:

From the first Mrs. Wharton's power has lain in the ability to reproduce in fiction the circumstances of a compact community in a way that illustrates the various oppressions which such communities put upon individual vagaries, whether viewed as sin, or ignorance, or folly, or merely as social impossibility.

Critics such as Cynthia Griffin Wolff of Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume Nine: American Novelists, 1910–1945 described The Age of Innocence as a bildungsroman, which is a novel that depicts a character's growth from adolescence into adulthood. Wolff argued that it is Newland whose growth into maturity is witnessed in Wharton's novel. She added that his experience is unique because of the narrow environment in which he matures. As a result, the restrictive setting can be viewed as meaningful, providing necessary structure to everyday life and to Newland's passage into manhood.

Some critics found notable flaws in The Age of Innocence. In fact, two of the members of the Pulitzer Prize committee thought the prize should have gone to another author in 1921 instead of Wharton. They believed the book to be overly specific to a time and place. As a result, they argued, the book lacked universal relevance. Other critics took this stance a step further, adding that the book is limited because it is about a community of people who were far removed from the norm, even in their own time and place.

Arthur Mizener in Twelve Great American Novels comments that The Age of Innocence, while "very nearly a great novel," is weakened by heavy-handed cleverness. He found the worst example to be May's muddied and torn wedding dress as a "crude and even sentimental symbol for the novel's feelings about Newland's marriage." Mizener is quick to add that, despite its flaws, the novel's depiction of the love affair between Ellen and New-land is "beautifully vivid and convincing," adding, "It would be hard to overpraise the dramatic skill and economy with which she brings these things [their love and frustration] about." Mizener was not the only critic voicing a mixed reaction. Blake Nevius, in the book Edith Wharton: A Study of Her Fiction, writes, "The Age of Innocence is not Mrs. Wharton's strongest novel, but along with Ethan Frome, it is the one in which she is most thoroughly the artist. It is a triumph of style."

Criticism

Jennifer Bussey

Bussey holds a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies and a bachelor's degree in English literature. She is an independent writer specializing in literature. In the following essay, she examines Newland Archer's divided self and the three major decisions he faces in The Age of Innocence.

Edith Wharton's protagonist in The Age of Innocence is the ineffectual Newland Archer. He is a typical young man who is frustrated and angst-ridden and wonders if there might be more to life than what he sees. He is a product of the social world of old New York, and it is in this milieu that he is most comfortable. He fully understands and upholds the rules of etiquette and the essential artifice that make up his social reality. At the same time, he feels stifled by New York society's strict conventions that dictate behavior and decision-making. There is no room for individuality or trying new things. The society is so narrow that its members do not welcome intellectuals, artists, or writers, as they may bring with them disturbing new ideas and opinions. And money alone is not enough to win entrance. Newly minted millionaire Julius Beaufort is allowed into the circle only because he marries a woman who comes from a respectable family. His position in New York is cemented because he and his wife have the only house with a private ballroom, which makes them socially significant. While Newland fancies himself well-educated and a "man of the world," he cannot shake the feeling that there is a reality beyond the bounds of this insular community.

Countess Ellen Olenska and May Welland represent the conflicting forces in Newland's psyche. May is demure and proper, the golden daughter of old New York; Ellen is mysterious and scandalous. May is described in chapter 21 as "one of the handsomest and most popular young married women in New York" and "one of the sweetest-tempered and most reasonable of wives." On the other hand, Ellen's experiences in Europe with the Polish count exemplify what Newland imagines he is missing in life. His neat, absolute categorizing of May and Ellen is evident in the flowers he sends them. Every day, he sends May a box of lilies-of-the-valley, which are pure white and signify innocence. In contrast, he sends brilliant yellow roses to Ellen, which demonstrates that he sees her as passionate, alluring, and sensual. That Ellen is leading the life he can only imagine heightens his attraction to her. In chapter 13, Wharton writes of Ellen's

mysterious faculty of suggesting tragic and moving possibilities outside the daily run of experience…. The exciting fact was her having lived in an atmosphere so thick with drama that her own tendency to provoke it had apparently passed unperceived.

Newland thinks that if he can be with Ellen, he is sure to have exciting adventures. In fact, his thinking is borne out, as his pursuit of her throughout the novel provides his most stimulating experiences. By being in Ellen's orbit, Newland is able to have some excitement without having to create an exciting life of his own.

Newland's first major decision in the novel comes when he resolves to leave May and follow Ellen to Europe. He is motivated by his unwillingness to imagine his life without Ellen, especially when he is left with May, who is becoming more and more like her mother (and all the other society women, for that matter) every day. He is captivated by Ellen and completely bored with May. To be fair, the reader must realize that May is essentially the same person she has been all along; she is the woman Newland fell in love with. After meeting Ellen, though, Newland begins to compare the two and finds May lacking. Ellen knows this and tries to enlighten him in chapter 29, when he picks her up at the train station in the carriage. Newland tells Ellen he wants to run away with her to a place "where we shall be simply two human beings who love each other, who are the whole life to each other; and nothing else on earth will matter." She responds with a laugh and says, "Oh, my dear—where is that country? Have you ever been there?" She knows what he does not—that they can never be together the way he wants them to be.

Whether or not Newland might have followed through with his decision to pursue Ellen to Europe is a question little considered in criticism of the novel. A strong argument can be made that New-land would not have gone under any circumstances. Newland does follow Ellen to Skuytercliff and Boston, and these relatively nearby destinations represent the lengths he will go to in order to be with her. While these trips are somewhat thrilling in their clandestine nature, they also are quite safe for Newland. He can easily fabricate reasons for the trips. His home life carries on as usual while he sneaks off to see the woman he loves. On the other hand, actually following her to Europe would be a monumental act. Newland would be forced to wholly give up his safe and comfortable existence in New York, become an outcast, and bring shame on his entire family. He has seen firsthand what becomes of people who are evicted from "the clan," and, he would not really be able to put himself (and Ellen) in that terrible position.

Newland never tells Ellen he plans to leave May and go with her to Europe, which is another indication that he was not really prepared to go. It is exciting to think about and makes him feel alive, but if he were truly committed to taking action, surely he would have at least mentioned his intentions to Ellen. He hints, as when he tells her goodbye and adds, "[B]ut I shall see you soon in Paris!" Ellen responds, "Oh, if you and May could come—!" Newland never tells Ellen of his plans for two reasons. First, he needs to keep available the option of backing out, and perhaps knows all along that when the moment comes, he will not go. Second, he realizes that if he tells Ellen, she will not react with the delight he hopes for, but rather with outright refusal. She may even tell him that she never wants to see him again because the arrangement they made was that they would never do anything to hurt May.

As an interesting aside, it should be noted that early drafts of the novel showed Newland running away with Ellen. Wharton was unable, however, to figure out a way to create happiness for the lovers. With so little in common, and so few shared tastes, Newland and Ellen would be unable to find enough common ground to have a meaningful and lasting relationship. This demonstrates how, once characters are created, even the author cannot force them to be happy and satisfied in ways that are inconsistent with who they are.

What Do I Read Next?

• Henry James's Portrait of a Lady (1881) is the story of Isabel Archer, a young American woman who comes into wealth and leaves for Europe, where she will test her mettle. This novel is considered by many to have been an inspiration for The Age of Innocence.
• Wharton's The House of Mirth (1905) vies with The Age of Innocence as Wharton's best work. Like The Age of Innocence, this novel is set in late nineteenth-century New York; here, however, she portrays Lily Bart's fall from social grace.
• Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813) is a classic novel of manners. Featuring one of literature's most memorable heroines, this novel depicts the struggles of romance in a time dictated by manners and class structures.
• Published in 1995, The Gilded Age: Essays on the Origins of Modern America, edited by Charles W. Calhoun, is a collection of essays about the United States between 1865 and 1898. Topics include politics, women, law, and the African-American experience.

When May tells Newland she is pregnant, he makes his second major decision. He knows that he cannot abandon May and the baby while he follows his passion to Europe. Just as Newland realizes what May is telling him, Wharton writes, "There was a long pause, which the inner devils filled with strident laughter." Newland knows that his decision has essentially been made for him, that he has been drawn back into his inescapable destiny as a society man in New York. Although he could technically still go to Europe, his sense of propriety and responsibility prevents him from doing so.

Once Newland realizes he is fated to be a family man in New York, he resigns himself to it and makes a pleasant life for himself and his family, carrying through his decision to stay with May. Rather than live a life filled with bitterness and resentment, he enjoys family life and enters politics for a short while at the insistence of Theodore Roosevelt. Reflecting on his life, he muses, "His days were full, and they were filled decently. He supposed it was all a man ought to ask." Perhaps the pleasant quality of his life indicates that Newland was relieved that he did not have to make the choice between the life he actually led and the life he might have led if he had chased after Ellen. Had May not given him the news of her pregnancy, he would have been forced to either go to Europe or talk himself out of it by conjuring up a compelling reason to stay.

In the last chapter, Newland makes his third and final major decision. Now a mature man, he makes this decision not from a sense of fancy or obligation, but from wisdom. He and his son are in Paris, and they are about to meet with Ellen, whom Newland has not seen for twenty-six years. His decision not to see her—and, therefore, not to see if there is still something left of their mutual passion—is confusing for many readers. On thoughtful reading, however, his reasons become clear.

At the age of only fifty-seven, the widowed Newland is fully aware that he has time for another romance in his life, which leads many readers to expect that love will triumph for Newland and Ellen after all. He kept her memory alive even as he grew to love May. In Paris, he walks through the city, seeing it as a context for Ellen's life. He imagines her walking here and visiting people there. For these reasons, a happy and romantic ending seems inevitable. So, why does Newland decide not to see her?

Newland is much wiser than he was twenty-six years ago, and he knows that the reality of a relationship with Ellen will never approach his longstanding fantasy. He has lived enough to understand what Ellen understood years ago—that people must live in the world of reality, not in the world of dreams. Wise enough now to grasp the difference, he chooses to preserve his dreams from the harshness of reality. Sitting outside her building, Newland imagines his son going in and meeting her, and he thinks, "It's more real to me here than if I went up." His fantasy far outshines anything reality can offer him, and he chooses not to risk losing it. This is by far his most courageous decision because it is one that he makes for himself willingly and realistically.

Source: Jennifer Bussey, in an essay for Novels for Students, Gale Group, 2001.

Jennifer A. Hynes

In the following overview of The Age of Innocence, Hynes explores Wharton's treatment of a changing society.

The Age of Innocence, a reminiscent but satiric account of the time, place, and society in which Edith Wharton grew up, won for the author a 1921 Pulitzer Prize and was a best-seller when it appeared. Wharton had earlier taken up the topic of the society of the old New York, in which her wealthy parents played important roles, in novels such as The House of Mirth and The Custom of the Country. But, written after Wharton had experienced the horror and destruction of World War I, in a time during which old systems of beliefs and customs seemed to be collapsing, The Age of Innocence looks back to a time of apparent stabil-ity—a time in which the forms and conventions were understood, if sometimes repressive. The novel is typically read as a discussion of the conflict between the individual and society, and between the safety and order of old, familiar ways and the possible chaos and uncertainty of new ways. Thus the conflict is crystallized in Newland Archer's choice between May and Ellen, a choice that represents the split between the society of old New York in which his family holds a respectable place and that of the newly wealthy invaders of his society that were rising to prominence after the Civil War. Because The Age of Innocence subtly censures the values and actions of both respectable old New York society and the fashionable newcomers, it is generally considered among Wharton's finest works.

Although the title of the novel literally refers to a 1788 Sir Joshua Reynolds portrait of a little girl, the title can be interpreted in several ways. The innocent age might be the condition of New York society in 1872, the year in which most of the action of the novel takes place. This is a society that refuses to discuss any of the unpleasant facts of life, such as divorce, extramarital affairs among its members, or the possibility of marriages made for financial gain. At the same time, society insists upon the absolute innocence, purity, and ignorance of all sexual matters in its unmarried women. Newland's spinster sister Janey is the monstrous outcome of this insistence—an adult who is perpetu-ally forced to pretend a childish innocence. May Welland is another product of such an upbringing, and even her husband-to-be believes in her complete innocence; when observing his fiancee watching the seduction scene in the opera Faust, New-land boasts to himself that May "doesn't even guess what it's all about." But while May participates in presenting herself as an innocent maiden, she shows by her actions later in the novel that she understands the facts of life that motivate men and women—both in operas and in real life. Newland begins to suspect that his bride is not as shallow as he had suspected when he finds that she has lied to Ellen about being certain of her pregnancy in order to keep her marriage intact. Later, Newland finds that May has told their son on her deathbed that Newland gave up the thing he wanted most (Ellen) when May asked him to. "She never asked me," Newland recalls.

But the title The Age of an Innocence could also refer to Newland's own youthful belief that love between a man and a woman is all that is needed to secure their happiness. When he voices his desire to Ellen that they might live happily outside of all social constraints, Ellen replies that such a life is not possible since too many other people would be hurt by their actions. Newland's process of coming to terms with the realities of relationships is an education of irony. When he is called upon by his family to counsel Ellen not to seek a divorce, he states the case in terms of family responsibility: "The individual, in such cases, is nearly always sacrificed to what is supposed to be the collective interest: people cling to any convention that keeps the family together—protects the children, if there are any … It's my business, you know, to help you to see these things as the people who are fondest of you see them. The Mingotts, the Wellands, the van der Luydens, all your friends and relations: if I didn't show you honestly how they judge such questions, it wouldn't be fair of me, would it?" But, ironically, it is these same reasons that Ellen forces Newland to consider when he later urges her to leave the stifling New York society to live in a world where such ugly designations as mistress and adultery do not exist. "Oh, my dear—where is that country? Have you ever been there?" Ellen asks Newland, attempting to make him realize that his dream is impossible.

May and Ellen represent different types of women to Newland. Even before becoming involved with Ellen he becomes interested in "the case of the Countess Olenska" rather than in Ellen as an individual. Since he is unaware of the depth of May's mind, Newland sees his fiancee and Ellen as contrasts, with May representing all that is safe, secure, and known in his society and Ellen all that is unknown and exotic in European society. May and Ellen can be read as the traditional light and dark heroines of literature, since Wharton portrays May as a wholesome blonde and Ellen as a seductive brunette. Newland thinks of May as representing "a Civic Virtue or a Greek Goddess"; her skill at archery reminds Newland of the goddess Diana. He notices May's eyes repeatedly as being transparent, serious, pale, limpid, and blue—all reminders of the extreme innocence he believes she possesses. In contrast, Ellen plays the role in New-land's mind as an exotic, European femme fatale who represents the threat of disorder that is descending upon old New York society. Her hands, described as being fragile and decorated with rings, are one of her most attractive attributes to New-land. The most sensual scene between Ellen and Newland is the one in which he takes off her glove in the carriage to kiss her hand. Newland learns few actual facts about Ellen's unhappy marriage and subsequent life, but is attracted by her mystery. Ellen is unconventional because of her desire to get a divorce from her cruel husband, her scandalous and shadowy past, her choice to live in a Bohemian section of New York, and her open friendships with men who are married or engaged. But while New-land mistakenly sees only the roles he ascribes to both May and Ellen, they are actually much more complex than these simple characterizations.

Although Wharton was perhaps more like Ellen than any other character in the novel (both are at once inside and outside of fashionable New York society, divorce their husbands, leave America to live in Paris, and greatly value stimulating conversation), the novel is more Newland's story than either May's or Ellen's. Just as Wharton did, Newland becomes interested in anthropology and is able to view his own society as an outsider and think critically of its rules and values. Wharton describes in detail the tribal rites that go on prior to a marriage between old New York families; May and Newland's schedule of prenuptial visits to relatives and friends follows a specific pattern. Even the decision to move up their wedding date must be approved by the family matriarch, Granny Mingott. In the opening scene of the novel Wharton refers to both Lawrence Lefferts, old New York's authority on form, and Sillerton Jackson, old New York's authority on family. But we see the hypocrisy of society since even Lefferts, a crusader for morality, has extramarital affairs. As Newland takes up the study of anthropology and begins to see such incongruities in his own society, he feels the impulse to break free from what he sees as stifling and meaningless conventions. However, Ellen's actions to save her cousin's marriage, May's maneuvers to keep Newland with her, and Newland's own inertia keep him from acting against his family's traditions.

By the end of the novel, when Newland's respectable son is about to marry the illegitimate daughter of Julius Beaufort, it is obvious that time and the invaders of old New York society have caused changes. Although little is mentioned of the twenty-six years between Newland's engagement to May and the closing scenes of the novel, we understand that he and his family have benefited from his (forced) decision to give up Ellen. Wharton depicts both the good and the bad sides of renunciation; the family is made stronger although the individual suffers from wondering what might have been. But since society has changed in spite of Newland's actions to maintain the old standards, it is clear that the suffocating old ways could not last.

Source: Jennifer A. Hynes, "The Age of Innocence: Overview," in Reference Guide to American Literature, 3d ed., edited by Jim Kamp, St. James Press, 1994.

Geoffrey Walton

In the following essay, Walton explores Wharton's nostalgic treatment of "Old New York" in The Age of Innocence.

Although Walter Berry prophesied that nobody else except themselves would be interested in the New York of her childhood, The Age of Innocence, 1920, was serialized in The Pictorial Review and was, almost inevitably, awarded the Pulitzer Prize and has become one of Edith Wharton's most widely read and admired works. It has all the ingredients of a historical best-seller, a richly detailed period setting, an emotional situation that the modern reader can flatter himself, or more important, herself would work out more happily at the present day and, combined with the appeal to critical superiority, a pervasive nostalgia for the past. It is, with all its faults, manifestly the product of a distinguished creative mind, if in a consciously relaxed mood, and it does not suffer from the wholly untypical rawness and nerviness of feeling, the uncertainty of tone and attitude that characterize A Son at the Front, which was being planned at the same time. The Puritanical element in the New York tradition comes out in The Age of Innocence much more strongly than in any part of The Custom of the Country and, remembering that Edith Wharton there uses the name Marvell, one is reminded in this later novel of A Definition of Love. There is, of course, no ground for supposing that she consciously took her theme from that poem, but the relationship between Newland Archer and Ellen Olenska has an air of being

… begotten by Despair Upon Impossibility. Everything in the situation is against them, the whole weight of a social and moral tradition. Nevertheless, as with the situation in The Reef, one finds it pathetic—and sometimes absurd—rather than tragic, and the elaborate moral solution and the epilogue rather heavily sentimental. The social conflict, of the individual against the group, is comparable to that of Lily Bart with a later New York Society, but it is muted and muffled by the mass of period upholstery. It is not merely that the age enthroned "Taste," that far-off divinity of whom "Form" was the mere visible representative and vicegerent; the whole story on both sides is especially fully visualized in terms of clothes and interior decoration, and documented with accounts of manners, customs, and social history. As in the case of the fully historical Valley of Decision, Edith Wharton is, to put it simply, more concerned to recreate a past age than to say something she thinks important about life. There is a lack of emotional pressure and ironic tension; elegant as the writing undoubtedly is, it lacks the hard precision of the best earlier books. After all, the stimulus to such writing was not there in the chosen subject matter, except on one or two occasions.

The New York world is re-created in full and fascinating detail. This is the genuine old New York of the 70s, before the millionaires of The House of Mirth had built their mansions on Fifth Avenue. We are given illustrative examples to those early paragraphs in A Backward Glance. Book One brings before us the moral and emotional situation in relation to that wealthy but in every way thoroughly provincial and middle-class community, which is perhaps most strikingly and fantastically epitomized by the fact that women imported dresses in the latest fashion from Worth and then kept them for two years before wearing them. The pattern of this little "Society" had come to seem part of the order of nature, incredible as this may seem:

New York, as far back as the mind of man could travel, had been divided into the two great fundamental groups of the Mingotts and Mansons and all their clan, who cared about eating and clothes and money, and the Archer-Newland-vander-Luyden tribe, who were devoted to travel, horticulture and the best fiction, and looked down on the grosser forms of pleasure….

Edith Wharton's use of the words "clan" and "tribe" is deliberate and recurring. The people who actually wrote books and painted pictures did not belong to either group. They did not want to, and Society was never sure whether hey were really "ladies" and "gentlemen." One moves on to note the finer distinction between the van der Luydens and two other families of aristocratic origin and the rest and, complicating the situation, the independent positions of old Mrs. Manson Mingott, a comic figure of monstrous obesity, and of Julius Beaufort, the rich financier, who is blatantly vulgar and openly disreputable. Two characters have a kind of choric function as representatives of the social spirit: they are Lawrence Lefferts who

… was, on the whole, the foremost authority on "form" in New York. He had probably devoted more time than anyone else to the study of this intricate and fascinating question; but study alone could not account for his complete and easy competence. One had only to look at him, from the slant of his bald forehead and the curve of his beautiful fair moustache to the long patent-leather feet at the other end of his lean and elegant person, to feel that the knowledge of "form" must be congenital in anyone who knew how to wear such good clothes so carelessly and carry such height with so much lounging grace….

and old Mr. Sillerton Jackson, the authority on "family":

He knew all the ramifications of New York's cousinships, and could not only elucidate such complicated questions as that of the connection between the Mingotts (through the Thorleys) with the Dallases of South Carolina, and that of the relationship of the eider branch of Philadelphia Thorleys to the A1bany Chiverse (on no account to be confused with the Manson Chiverses of University Place), but could also enumerate the leading characteristics of each family….

It was an inflexible social pattern and it is very suitable that we should get our first panorama of it as Newland Archer, the hero, surveys the audience at the opera, an institution where all the traditional European social rituals were assiduously imitated. Ellen Olenska is conspicuous because her dress, though elegant, is not quite conventional. The Archer family, although belonging to the more intellectual section of Society, are shown as weighed down with conventional habits, and the implications of Newland Archer's gestures of rebellion are not always fully understood even by himself; sometimes he sees his marriage "with a shiver of foreboding becoming what most of the other marriages about him [are]: a dull association of material and social interests held together by ignorance on the one side and hypocrisy on the other." But he is "sincerely but placidly in love" with the "frankness" and "freshness," based of course on utter ignorance, of his bride, May Welland, and looks forward to guiding her vague cultural gestures. One can see that they are in fact predestined to become a typical New York couple, if of slightly wider interests than the majority. Newland Archer is too gentlemanly, too committed to the regime of doing the right things, of avoiding unpleasantness of all kinds and, especially, of ignoring the loose living of many of his associates. Presumably, in order to make life viable at all for a relatively small, wealthy, and leisured community, the moral atmosphere had been allowed to settle down in this way; only dishonesty in business or flagrant sexual irregularity was condemned. Yvors Winters sums up The Age of Innocence by saying that it illustrates an ethical tradition more ancient than Calvinist Puritanism, though modified by it:

… the characters are living in a society cognate and coterminous with those principles; the society with its customs and usages, is the external form of the principles. Now the customs and usages may become unduly externalized, and when they appear so to become, Mrs. Wharton satirizes them; but in the main they represent the concrete aspect of the abstract principles of behavior. He goes on to discuss the relationship of Archer and Ellen Olenska in terms of their having to abandon a way of life that they in fact find satisfying and admirable, if they decide to rebel openly against its moral principles. This indicates the situation in the long run.

In the short run everything possible is done to absorb the Countess Olenska into Society and neutralize her possibly disturbing influence. Even the aristocratic van der Luydens are moved to lend her their prestige. Ellen Olenska, though a cousin, is a foreign and, at least potentially, a revolutionary force. She settles in a street between the purlieus of Society and Bohemia, has unusual decorations and unwittingly compromises herself by entertaining doubtful company—old New York snobbery did not extend to an English duke for his rank alone. The charm of Ellen Olenska is made very real. She is beautiful, smart, intelligent, original in her taste, generous and guileless; she is not a mere "madeover" version of the Baroness Munster, though the general idea of the book is, of course, related to that of The Europeans. The contrast between her and May Welland is brought out again when May goes so far as to cut church to walk with Archer in the Park, but causes him to say:

"Original! We're all as like each other as those dolls cut out of the same folded paper. We're like patterns stencilled on a wall Can't you and I strike out for ourselves, May?"

But Archer's subjection to convention comes out in his advice to Ellen to avoid a divorce with its risks of scandal and one reaches the point at which he has let his engagement to May go forward because he is not quite sure of Ellen's innocence and Ellen feels, "I can't love you unless I give you up"; in other words, she feels that she must accept the conventions of New York because its narrowminded community has after all made her feel happy and, paradoxically, even free. Fate has crowded itself betwixt them in the double guise of social convention, with its whole lineage of moral principle, and of family solidarity and generosity which, if they take effect a little slowly and grudgingly, nevertheless manifest themselves in very solid and material forms. The worst and best of old New York are inseparable. Everyone is too "nice" for the heights and depths of passion to have scope. The mere humbugs and the absurder customs are satirized, but in the rest of the picture Edith Whar-ton is resurrecting the historical types and evoking the scenes she remembered without her customary play of irony. The central situation is presented in all solemnity without seeming tragic; from Edith Wharton one would have expected something analogous to the wit of Marvell's poem.

Newland Archer's two relationships now develop rapidly. The fashionable wedding is described with much detail of dress and behavior, and, after this, his disappointing honeymoon in Europe, which shows up May as scarcely more cultivated than Undine Spragg is shown to be in similar circumstances, followed by a Newport season with all its archaic ritual. It is therefore inevitable that Archer should drift back toward Ellen A curious relationship is established depending on

… the perfect balance she had held between their loyalty to others and their honesty to themselves that had so stirred and yet tranquillized him; a balance not artfully calculated, as her tears and her falterings showed, but resulting naturally from her unabashed sincerity. It filled him with a tender awe, now the danger was over, and made him thank the fates that no personal vanity, no sense of playing a part before sophisticated witnesses, had tempted him to tempt her….

This relationship, with all the magnanimity it implies—it is a kind of "magnanimous despair" leading to a love of "divine" ideality—is offered for our unqualified admiration. May's conventionality and unsuitability as a wife for Archer are made painfully obvious; his throwing open a window on a cold evening symbolizes his feeling of claustration. Ellen's moral superiority to everyone around her becomes equally obvious in her demonstrative kindness to Mrs. Beaufort after the bank failure—old New York's human worst side was plainer than its commercial best on such occasions. Her clear-sightedness sees the frequent dinginess of the lives of unmarried couples where Archer has only his own sort of conventional romantic visions. But the alternative she offers of love in separation—"in reach and yet out of reach" or, at the most, "Shall I—once come to you; and then go home?"—lacks, for all the gratitude and generosity towards the feelings of her friends underlying it, a certain fundamental humanity. It is not in the context tantalizing and coy, as might appear in quotation, but very idealized. Her fineness has some of the rarefied quality of Anna Leath's, though none of the meanness, and she certainly does not suffer from Lily Barf's vein of frivolousness. Despite her past experience, she will not or cannot face the consequences of a break with social conventions. As Winters says, a formal social order, with all its restrictions, seems to her to provide a more satisfactory way of life than freedom in isolation. The situation is wound up with the most meticulous regard for old New York conventions. Ellen Olenska has decided to return to Europe—we learn afterwards that May has precipitated this by a piece of deceit; the Archers give the farewell dinner, and the hypocrisy is an occasion for some magnificent satiric conclusions in Edith Wharton's most trenchant manner—here the writing really comes to life:

There were certain things that had to be done, and if done at all, done handsomely and thoroughly; and one of these, in the old New York code, was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe. There was nothing on earth that the Wellands and Mingotts would not have done to proclaim their unalterable affection for the Countess Olenska now that her passage for Europe was engaged.

It was the old New York way of talking life "without effusion of blood"; the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes," except the behaviour of those who gave rise to the to them …

Archer is made conscious of all the irony and the suspicions and of his helplessness in the grip of the genteel tradition, and we are shown a bitterly satiric picture of the victory of the two petty tyrants of Form and Family.

Nevertheless, the final solution can only be taken as a sentimental endorsement of the tribal code. Archer settles down as a model husband—he and May "compromise" by ignoring awkward realities to the end. In the epilogue he reemerges as a public-spirited citizen who has worked with Theodore Roosevelt, but he refuses the chance of a reunion with Ellen when it comes thirty years later. Though Archer has become a more active representative of old New York than Selden or Marvell, one is asked to reverence the persistence of tradition rather than admire its flexibility. The possible pointer toward the later chapters of The Buccaneers is not sufficiently followed up to make it truly significant. Edith Wharton apparently endorses both old New York and Ellen Olenska's and Archer's renunciation of each other, which indeed, in its idealism, also belongs to old New York; Ellen Olenska is not completely foreign after all. This is a rather sugary version of the kind of conflict that leads to Lily Bart's tragedy. To compare it with the brilliantly conic interplay of values and foibles that James creates in The Europeans, where the Baroness after doing so much to aerate the atmos-phere of New England lets herself down with a fib, is to realize how leisurely and lacking in vitality The Age of Innocence is as a whole. One cannot help also realizing, however, that in its nostalgic escapism, which she admits to in A Backward Glance, is also personal to the author in other ways. One recalls, in connection with Ellen Olenska's attitude, Mrs. Wharton's exclamation quoted by Percy Lubbock, "Ah, the poverty, the miserable poverty, of any love that lies outside of marriage, of any love that is not a living together, a sharing of all!" These words, dating from about 1912, the year of her separation, and about two years after the end of her affair with Morton Fullerton, might have been spoken in the novel and one feels that, in creating Ellen Olenska and giving her human vitality and definition in a world of wax works, Edith Wharton may have been projecting an idealized vision of herself into the Society of her youth, where one knows she was in fact a rather colorless participant. Now that we know how far Mrs. Wharton in fact differed from Ellen Olenska, we see both the pathos and the irony of such an idealization. Anna Leath and, later, Rose Sellars are comparable, though older, types of elegant austerity; but they are more austere and also much more critically presented. Edith Wharton is surely in all three, partly idealizing and partly criticizing, in various combinations, her own complex nature, her refined puritanism, inherited and temperamental, and her sometimes concealed, sometimes repressed, capacity for human warmth and passion. It would be impertinent to speculate any further until more documentary evidence is available, but one also feels that the identification is supported by her creation of comparable types of elegant austerity in Anna Leath and, later, Rose Sellars. It is difficult to say how far this represents a vein of Puritan tradition and how far a temperamental compulsion, insofar as these could in any case be separated.

In the Old New York stories, 1922 to 1924, Edith Wharton goes back into reported history, beginning with the forties; their chief interest is social. False Dawn demonstrates how very middle class indeed the manners of the top layer of New York Society had been within the lifetime of Edith Wharton's older contemporaries, and New Year's Day gives us a very seamy picture of the age of innocence; Edith Wharton presents a situation of considerable pathos and implies a further and even more damning criticism of the pettier conventions of the time. The series brings to an end Mrs. Wharton's concern with the uneasy position of the individual in a closely integrated and exclusive social group where ordered and polished appearances are the expression of moral ideals and principles and the divergencies of errant reality may be not only ridiculous but also shocking.

Source: Geoffrey Walton, "Old New York," in Edith Wharton: A Critical Interpretation, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970, pp. 137-46.

Sources

Bloom, Harold, ed., Edith Wharton: Modern Critical Views, Chelsea House, 1986.

Kellogg-Griffith, Grace, The Two Lives of Edith Wharton: The Woman and Her Work, Appleton-Century, 1965.

McDowell, Margaret B., "Edith Wharton," in Twayne's United States Authors, G.K. Hall and Co., 1999.

Mizener, Arthur, "The Age of Innocence," in Twelve Great American Novels, New American Library, 1967, pp. 78-80.

Nevius, Blake, Edith Wharton, A Study of Her Fiction, University of California Press, 1953, pp. 185-7.

Phelps, William Lyon, "As Mrs. Wharton Sees Us," in New York Times Book Review, Vol. 53, October 17, 1920, pp. 1, 11.

Tuttleton, James W., "Edith Wharton," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume Twelve: American Realists and Naturalists, edited by Donald Pizer, Gale, 1982, pp. 433-50.

Van Doren, Carl, "Edith Wharton," in Contemporary American Novelists 1900–1920, Macmillan, 1922, pp. 95-7.

Wershoven, Carol, The Female Intruder in the Novels of Edith Wharton, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982, pp. 91-3.

Wharton, Edith, The Age of Innocence, introduction by Paul Montazzoli, Barnes & Noble, 1996.

Wolff, Cynthia Griffin, "Edith Wharton," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume Nine: American Novelists, 1910–1945, edited by James J. Martine, Gale, 1981, pp. 126-42.

For Further Study

Bell, Millicent, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Edith Wharton, Cambridge University Press, 1995.

This book contains essays by established and new scholars evaluating Wharton's fiction. It is intended for readers who are new to Wharton's work, as well as for scholars of her writing.

Bloom, Harold, ed., Edith Wharton: Modern Critical Views, Chelsea House, 1986.

Noted literary scholar Bloom reviews and evaluates Wharton's writing career.

Davis, Joy L., "The Ritual of Dining in Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence," in Midwest Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 4, Summer 1993, pp. 465-81.

Davis demonstrates how the dining scenes in the novel serve to represent the larger action of the plot. At the dining table, the characters are able to assert their positions in the social hierarchy.

Godfrey, David A., "The Full and Elaborate Vocabulary of Evasion: The Language of Cowardice in Edith Wharton's Old New York," in Midwest Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 1, Autumn 1988, pp. 27-44.

Godfrey examines Wharton's use of language and shows how it relates to norms of conduct and behavior by members of old New York society.

Hadley, Kathy Miller, "Ironic Structure and Untold Stories in The Age of Innocence," in Studies in the Novel, Vol. 23, No. 2, Summer 1991, pp. 262-72.

Hadley describes the three different plots Wharton considered for The Age of Innocence, and examines the reasons for the chosen story line.

Hopkins, Viola, "The Ordering Style of The Age of Innocence," in American Literature, Vol. XXX, No. 3, November 1958, pp. 345-57.

Hopkins provides a thorough review and explanation of Wharton's use of imagery in the novel.

Wharton, Edith, A Backward Glance, Appleton-Century, 1934.

This is Wharton's autobiographical work in which she considers her life and career. Critics of her work often refer to this important publication for contextual information about her work.